English Learners: Immigrant Children In The Classroom

English language learners (ELL) are one of the fastest growing classifications of students attending schools in the United States today. They represent a diverse group of students typically coming from homes or backgrounds where English is not the primary language spoken. Additionally, ELL students experience difficulties communicating or learning academic instruction in English.

ESL is stands for English as a Second Language, which is a program that?s mainly developed to supplement the Bilingual Education in order to give extra help to the immigrants to learn English. ?The profession of teaching English as a second language within the United States began to expand in the 1960s in response to increasing numbers of immigrant and refugee children entering the country, as well as to the growing numbers of international students attending U.S. universities? (Collier and Ovando, 1998). Students in the ESL program receive the instruction of their level of English proficiency, so they can learn the English from the very basic level. Once they get better with their English skills, they will be able to move out the ESL program and be as competitive as the native speakers of English in other subject classes. The first decades of ESL programs fails to help students with academic work in math, science, social studies, and other curricular areas but English. In order to improve this situation, ESL programs started to focus more in helping students with their academic works during the 1950s and 1960s (Collier and Ovando, 1998).

The United States has experience a large wave of immigration of hopeful people to try and start a better life and live the American Dream. Coming from countries around the world, the United States is being shaped by the immigrants. Families that come to the United States come here to give their children a better education and for them to have a successful life than they ever had. Immigrant children have to live with the fear everyday of being deported and being separated from their parents. All these children want to do is have a better education and try to support their families. Little by little Obama is helping the immigrant children who actually want an education and deserve an opportunity to be successful in this country, by passing the dream act and making speeches about how important immigration is and how education for

Immigrant children endue a great deal of stress. This stress is created as a result of leaving familiar people and places and entering a new place with a different culture and language. During this process, many immigrant children struggle to re-establish themselves as they enter the United States. These children need to feel connected and accepted because these are important factors of child development. For children who do not feel connected with their peers, family, or school may have an increased risk of suicide, school failure and drop-out, and criminal activity.

be English Language Learners, (ELL) for them to benefit from this lesson or to meet state

English learners are currently the fastest developing student population in schools today. This makes it extremely important to provide these students with the programs and services they deserve. Providing a strong education for ELL students is what I personally believe to be an asset in America’s future. Today there are many challenges I believe teachers and students face when it comes to instruction and assessments.

I have read about how immigrants struggle to get their education in the United States because of lack of well qualified ESL teachers, limited resources in schools for immigrants etc. The education system has been very unfair for the immigrants because very little things are done to help them be more successful in getting their education. In an article published in Harvard University journal a researcher says, “Even though one out of every four children in the United States is an immigrant or the U.S.-born child of immigrants, many schools are ill-equipped to meet their needs,” which shows how the education system has not been fair for the immigrants (Tamer). As we all know there are lots of immigrants in United States and I think that the education system in United States should be changed in such a way that it suits everyone including the immigrants. In the same article Tamer says, “Even though one out of every four children in the United States is an immigrant or the U.S.-born child of immigrants, many schools are ill-equipped to meet their needs”, which shows more importance of schools and programs to help the immigrants in the United States.

In today's world, illegal immigrants are given no opportunities in life. However, suppose there is a way to give immigrant children a chance to a new life. A way for those to connect and meet people with different backgrounds. Imagine the United States government funding and administering a living and educational facility for those immigrant children in search for a better life. The "New Beginnings" facility will educate the youth. The children will learn and explore diverse languages. The facility will teach the children about American culture and allow them to exchange ideas, for instance the food Americans eat, the sports played, and one's religion. This can enable the children to have careers and provide them with United States jobs later in their lives.

The authors of the article explained how important it is to meet the needs of the students with limited English ability in the education system. One of the main point expresses about how frustrating it could be for these students, especially if they were never expose to this sort of environment or language before. Another point that was made in the article, explains how the educational system was not prepared for changes in this sort of population. In most cases, some of the curriculum that is being offered in school cannot be changed to accommodate English Limited Learners, also known as ELLs. Budget is also another issue, as schools are limited to hiring more ELL teachers.

Selamawi immigrated to Chicago from Ethiopia at the age of seven, and later graduated from Harvard. Before immigrating to America, Selamawi experienced famine, a civil war, and spent five years of his childhood in a refugee camp. Rather than holding him back, his struggles in life made him thrive in American schools. Like Selamawi, many immigrants come into this country with unique backgrounds and appreciate education. In spite of Selamawi’s story, with more and more immigrant children coming to America, many question how sufficiently these students can be educated in the school system. Others question what benefits come out of letting in immigrant children and introducing them into American schools. Popular belief has it that immigrant children are a growing problem for American schools, however immigration is only beneficial to American students and schools.

Immigrant youth are a significant proportion of our national student population today. Many of us don’t realize how many immigrant children there really are. In her interview, “The Education of Immigrant Children”, posted by Harvard Graduate School of Education on December 11, 2014, Mary Tamer, a graduate student, speaks to Harvard Professor Natasha Warikoo in order to inquire into some of the issues immigrant children face in their lives. According to Tamer, by 2050 more than one-third of school children will be an immigrant, or the child of an immigrant (Tamer). One-third is a largely substantial number, and reflects this as a substantial issue. Though how much is our immigrant population growing? In March 2005, during the National Conference of State Legislators, Ann Morse brought forth a report that she had drafted to reflect on the details of immigration and to announce how programs were doing which had been created and funded to improve and support immigrant youth. Due to this report, there are “current high levels of immigration - over 1 million per year” (Morse). Again, as our immigrant population grows, it increasingly becomes apparent that we cannot ignore this issue. But this large amount begs the question, what about our teaching population? Well, according Professor Warikoo, “our teaching force is more than 80 percent white, while over half of children today are racial minorities” (Tamer). Most teachers today aren’t able to personally connect or relate with

It has been estimated that by the year 2025, approximately one out of every public school student will be identified as an ESL/ELL student in the United States. ESL stands for English as a Second Language and ELL stands for English Language Learner. An ESL/ELL student can be defined as a student whose predominant language or languages at home, is other than English, and would require additional English language support to develop reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. The difference between an ESL student and ELL student is minor; An ESL student participates in programs that are customarily specialized while an ELL student partakes in a traditional educational classroom. English Language Learners have surpassed other subgroups in becoming the fastest growing of the public school population. Despite the common misjudgement of some people towards the ESL/ELL population, 76% of the ESL/ELL students in elementary schools and 56% of the ESL/ELL students in secondary schools are native-born. The highest percentages of ELL/ESL students in public schools are found in the west of the United States. Taking the average of both bigger and smaller cities, ELL students make an average of 14% of the total public school enrollment and in suburban areas, ELL students make up an average of 8.5% of public school enrollment. The ESL/ELL population has more than doubled over the past 15 years and more than half of those students struggle with their academic performance. An ESL/ELL

My child gets made fun of because he does not speak the English language very well and I cannot find a job because I speak little of the language. How can you help immigrants, mostly children, in getting an education?

Tutored kids in a low-income housing project in Boston while in school. She felt powerless in the program because many of the students had emotional and physical experiences when they were younger that made educating them very challenging.

ESL students are students that speak English as a second language. Presently, there is many different system to characterize this type of students (qtd in Shi, Steen 63). For example, they can be seen as “English Language Learners (ELL), English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), English Language Development (ELD), English Language Service (ELS), and